M25 Closure Clockwise J2, Kent, Thursday, 11 February 2016

The M25 in Kent was closed clock­wise due to a seri­ous inci­dent involv­ing a car and a Heavy Goods Vehi­cle which occurred in the early hours of Thurs­day morn­ing 11 Feb­ru­ary. The inci­dent caused a full clo­sure of the clock­wise M25 within J2, for the A2 and Dart­ford with exten­sive dam­age to the safety bar­rier. Due to a seri­ous injury occur­ring Kent Police had to con­duct a full inves­ti­ga­tion. As a result of the exten­sive bar­rier dam­age a lane 1 clo­sure will be in place for sev­eral days to repair the barrier.

On the morn­ing of Thurs­day the 11th Feb­ru­ary 2016 at approx­i­mately 04:00 hours our South East Regional Con­trol Cen­tre was made aware by Kent Police of a col­li­sion between a car and a Heavy Goods Vehi­cle on the M25 clock­wise within J2 for the A2 and Dart­ford which also resulted in exten­sive dam­age to the safety bar­rier. Our South East Regional Con­trol Cen­tre imme­di­ately deployed High­ways Eng­land Traf­fic Offi­cers to assist Kent Police and set appro­pri­ate signs on all routes towards the loca­tion. A diver­sion was put in place via the exit and entry slip roads.

Upon fur­ther assess­ment of the inci­dent, Kent Police dis­cov­ered this to be seri­ous and requested the clo­sure of the clock­wise car­riage­way within Junc­tion 2 so they and other emer­gency ser­vices could work safely at the scene and attend to the casu­al­ties one of whom had sus­tained seri­ous injuries. At approx­i­mately 05:30 hours all trapped traf­fic within the clo­sure had been released and Kent Police advised the clo­sure was expected to be in place through the morn­ing peak period as a full inves­ti­ga­tion would need to be car­ried out. Infor­ma­tion regard­ing the clo­sure was issued to the South East and East Twit­ter feeds and a travel report was issued to the media by our National Inci­dent Liai­son Offi­cers. As the morn­ing pro­gressed into the peak period delays increased due to the clo­sure while inves­ti­ga­tion works continued.

Strate­gic Vari­able Mes­sage Signs were set within a 100 mile radius on all strate­gic approaches inform­ing our cus­tomers of delays. At 09:30 hours Kent Police con­firmed their inves­ti­ga­tion work was com­plete and vehi­cle recov­ery crews had arrived on scene to remove the car involved. Once the vehi­cle had been recov­ered our con­trac­tors were able to begin clear-up work and assess the bar­rier dam­age and source a num­ber of tem­po­rary bar­ri­ers and equip­ment. Our National Inci­dent Liai­son Offi­cers con­tin­ued to update our cus­tomers via inci­dent reports, South East and East Twit­ter feeds and Break­ing News fea­tured on the High­ways Eng­land web­site. A press release was also issued by High­way Eng­land and Vari­able Mes­sage Signs were updated to remind cus­tomers of the clo­sure and severe delays.

At approx­i­mately 12:30 hours our con­trac­tors com­menced work and con­tin­ued through­out the day lift­ing and installing 4 lorry loads of con­crete blocks to pro­tect the dam­aged bar­rier area. As the morn­ing peak period passed delays reduced and we issued tweets to our Twit­ter feeds with the lat­est images from the scene.

The work was com­pleted at approx­i­mately 16:45 hrs and the car­riage­way re-opened with a lane 1 clo­sure in place to pro­tect the dam­aged bar­rier. A fur­ther press release was also issued to the media. The lane 1 clo­sure is expected to remain in place for sev­eral days until a replace­ment sec­tion of the bar­rier can be installed. Due to the bar­ri­ers unique nature and design our con­trac­tors have advised that this will require spe­cial­ist manufacturing.

Dri­vers using this sec­tion of the M25 over the next week are advised that delays are pos­si­ble and to plan their jour­neys to allow extra time.

Oper­a­tion Stack is an emer­gency mea­sure agreed by High­ways Eng­land, Kent Police, Kent County Coun­cil and other strate­gic part­ners in response to issues affect­ing capac­ity at the Port of Dover and Euro­tun­nel. For the lat­est sta­tus of Oper­a­tion Stack please see Kent police webpage

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